The Concept of Time from Our Scholars (Part 3 of Series on Time)

In the last two articles [The Concept of Time in Quran – Part1 & The Concept of Time in Hadith -Part2] we mentioned some of the remarkable concepts and attitudes towards time in both Qur’an and Hadith. To see the fruits of practicing these principles, we can observe the statements and examples of our pious predecessors from the time of the great early generations (Salaf us-Saalih) to our times. The following is a limited selection of extremely dedicated Muslims who were continuously productive and truly understood the value of time.

An oft-quoted Islamic saying about time comes from Imam Shafi’i who famously expounded two principles of time management:

“Time is like a sword: if you don’t cut it, it will cut you. Second is yourself: if you don’t busy it with right, it will busy you with wrong.”

The first point reminds us of the urgency of time, the metaphor indicating the sharp ruthlessness of the way in which time can seemingly ‘cut’ you: you can waste an hour, a day, a month, or years. To ‘cut it’ with time, one has to actively manage it, bringing us to the second point: our nafs. In Surah 14:53, Yusuf says,

“Man’s very soul incites him to evil.”

Our nafs al-ammarah thus needs active restraining and purifying, lest it lead us to do bad deeds.

In the time management context, when one simply drifts along without a clear focus or plan, it is so much easier to be tempted to sin or waste time. What’s the main reason why ‘yobbos’ engage in petty crime or delinquent behaviour? The answer heard time and time again is that they have ‘nothing to do.’ At an individual level, where a person has no goal or project or purpose they end up wasting their life away. Teenagers disengaged with school waste their life on computer games and gossip; jobless young men take to drugs; elderly widows living alone spend all their time in house work as they know not what else to do. I believe the soaring rates of depression and mental illness, sadly even in our Muslim community, is partly due to a lack of purpose and direction. It’s not enough to be Muslim. One has to understand what Islam entails. And anyone who understands what Islam entails, understands the state of urgency we’re in. We cannot help being busy.

The importance of a healthy sense of busy-ness is brilliantly illustrated in an anecdote related about Hassan al-Banna, the founder to the Muslim Brotherhood. Being the head of a huge organisation, he naturally had a lot of tasks to delegate.Hassan al-Banna once asked his students, rhetorically,

‘If I had two people to give a task to, one who was always busy with projects and the other who had lots of free time, who would I give it to? The busy person, as he is in the habit of getting things done, whilst you have to ask why has the second person got nothing to do?’

In other words, for a productive person, let alone Muslim, it’s inconceivable to have nothing to do.

Our righteous scholars are brilliant models of time management. Why should they not be when the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) told us that they are the true ‘heirs of the prophets’? Imam an-Nawawi is typical of the way scholars spent their time. Regarding his organisation of time, Al-Qutb al-Yauneeni said about him:

‘If I had two people to give a task to, one who was always busy with projects and the other who had lots of free time, who would I give it to? The busy person, as he is in the habit of getting things done, whilst you have to ask why has the second person got nothing to do?’

Take, for example, Ibn Ma’in who wrote a million hadith by hand; Ibn Jarir who literally wrote hundreds of volumes, and al-Maqdisi who would pray 300 rak’at before Zuhr! With this super-human work ethic, there is no doubt as to why the Muslims were leaders of the world. For example, al-Khalil ibn Ahmad, one of the foremost intellectuals of his time (100-170AH), said:

“The most burdensome time for me is when I must eat.”

SubhanAllah! For lazy souls like me, meal times are the highlight of the day! And yet the scholars described in this book ate and even slept only when driven to by sheer necessity. They were simply too busy seeking knowledge, teaching, worshiping, serving the Ummah and pleasing Allah (glorified and exalted be He) with every ounce of their energy, in every possible moment.

I remember an inspiring lecture I attended during my university years by Professor Salim Hassani, the founder of the incredible Muslim Heritage and 1001 Inventions projects. He explained that efficiency = input/output. The Muslims in our Golden Age, with even a little input (dhikr, ‘ibaada, salah, etc.), would produce huge output (service to humanity). In contrast, in our times we have barely any input let alone the miniscule output we proffer to the world.

Let me end this article by showing how Imam an-Nawawi demonstrates Professor Hassani’s enlightened observation (made after long years of research). It is well known that an-Nawawi would attend 12 lessons a day. What is less well known is that when this is added to his revision time and voluntary worship he actually did more in one day than is conceivable in 24 hours. This astounded later scholars, as is illustrated in al-Diqr’s biography:

He used to have twelve study sessions a day with his teachers. These included explanations, verifications, commentaries, explaining the different aspects and expressions as well as exacting the correct wordings. This would take, at a least approximation, twelve hours a day. Then he would need to review what he had learned and memorise what need to be memorised. The very least approximation is that this would also take twelve hours a day. This is twenty-four hours in a day! When would he sleep? When would he eat? When would he perform the acts of worship? When would he perform the voluntary late night prayers? It is well-known that he performed those types of acts of obedience and worship. When would all of that take place? He was in need of studying and reviewing for all the twenty fours in a day and night.

An-Nawawi’s astounding success is, as al-Diqr points out, that he would“complete in one day what it takes everyone else two years to accomplish.” Complete in 1day what would take others 2years to accomplish. Just think about that! And Imam an-Nawawi is typical of countless other great scholars. Imagine if we could be that productive in our field, in our endeavours, in our lives. How would that impact our souls, our families and communities?

What was the secret to their productivity, their time management? Baraka. Pure baraka. Allah (glorified and exalted be He) blessed their time. An-Nawawi himself admits humbly, ‘Allah blessed my time.’ Al-Diqr explains it like this:

This shows how Allah blessed and graced this man. Allah blessed him in his time. This is the only way we can explain this tremendous undertaking that made him one of the greatest scholars of his time in about ten years. In fact, it made him the leader (Imam) of his time. This is also the only way we can explain all of his wonderful, detailed and radiant writings in a span of time that lasted no more than fifteen years. He spent all of his lifetime and living hours in learning, teaching and writing.

The subject of the next article, and the last in this series, will seek to relate the means and secrets to this baraka experienced by the scholars of past and present: we will look at practical strategies from Qur’an and Sunnah which you can implement and benefit from in our times, inshaAllah. We ask Allah (glorified and exalted be He) to bless us and the entire Ummah in our time, just as He blessed the time of the Prophets (peace be upon them) and the righteous Muslims after them. Ameen.

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Written byTushar Bhuiya

Tushar Imdad-ul-Haque Bhuiya is Assistant Director of Manara Academy, Leicester, where he teaches Islamic Studies and English ( www.manara-education.co.uk ). He also delivers workshops, coaches and writes articles on time management.